Resurgent Drexel Visits Elon Thursday
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) --- Drexel is playing some of its best basketball of the season right now.
The Dragons are on a three-game winning streak after an 85-76 home victory on Saturday against UNC-Wilmington. This hot streak has improved the Dragons to 7-14 and, more importantly, 5-5 in the Colonial Athletic Association as they get ready to visit Elon on Thursday night.
"We've played a lot better," Drexel head coach Bruiser Flint tells KYW Newsradio. "We just haven't been making as many mistakes. Guys, I guess they are starting to figure out where they are and what we need to actually be able to do. We're not killing ourselves out there. I think our effort has been pretty good."
Listen to Bruiser Flint with KYW's Matt Leon:
The Dragons got a phenomenal effort out of Damion Lee in Saturday's win, continuing a season-long trend. Lee, a 6-6 junior guard, scored 32 points against UNC-Wilmington, going 10-14 from the field and 10-11 from the line. He also pulled down a season-high 13 rebounds. The performance upped his scoring average to 21.7 ppg, and that has him sitting fourth in the nation.
"His efficiency in terms of shots taken and how many points he's getting, the rebounds, the assists, the steals, has been remarkable," Flint says. "I don't think there's anybody playing at a higher level than what he's playing right at this time. I don't care whether it's in our league or in the country. And everybody knows he's the guy that has to score the ball, that's the thing. So it's not like, ok, he's getting this and we've got some other guy that really scores. They (opponents) know we've had our problems scoring the ball and he's the one that's going to score it."
The Dragons have already matched up with Elon once this season, dropping a 77-67 decision at the DAC back on January 3rd.
"When they played here, they had (16) field goals in the first half and ten of them were from the three-point line," Flint says. "So they killed us in the first half shooting the ball from the three-point line. We've got to do a better job of guarding the three against them. Again, it was one of those games, even though we got down big, we came back. We made a lot of mistakes late in the game to give them baskets to sort of keep us at bay. So we've got to be able to guard the three-point line, we've got to do a better job of rebounding and hopefully we can score the ball a little bit like we did against UNCW."
Elon is 11-12 heading into Thursday's game, 3-7 in the CAA.
Thursday's game in Elon, North Carolina, tips off at 7:00pm.
You can follow Matt on Twitter @mattleonkyw.